Decision Making
by kee-chan
Summary: When Nicole's parents, Jackie and Hyde, appear in heaven with her, she's given a chance to go back in time to change the current circumstances. Set in heaven and in Season 8, episode 1. Down with Sam, JH all the way.
1. Chapter 1

This originally was supposed to be a one shot, consisting of like 4,000 words, but I decided to split it. I like reading stories where I can take breaks between chapters, and continue on reading, knowing what chapter I was on.

Enjoy!

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><p>"That's the bimbo that ruined everything.."<em> You've got to be fucking kidding.<em> She's definitely nowhere near as pretty as the raven hair chick, who I happen to look like. I can't believe that actually happened. One decision, spiraling into hell, excuse the pun. And now this happens.. I sighed a heavy sigh, and looked back to the vision of a memory that occurred not too long ago.

"For an angel, you're pretty feisty, you know that?" Jesus sighed. "You know this all happened just a year and a half ago. It's such a shame. God creates love to prosper, to learn forgiveness, not to crumble."

I looked over to my right, and saw the same raven haired girl from the memory I had just seen, accompanied by a curly hair boy with similar sunglasses as mine. They looked so blissful together, here in heaven. As if nothing had ever happened.

Jackie Burkhart and Steven Hyde, my parents. They were sitting together on a cloud, talking about something I guess was funny, because Mom had laughed, while Dad had smirked. In heaven, they took the form of themselves when Mom was still a senior in high school. They were technically younger than me in heaven, I'm in a 20 year old's body.

When you die, you appear in heaven in the form you were happiest in. My parents were happiest in the peak of their on and off two year relationship. Carefree and in love. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to live on Earth, and Jesus had chosen an age for me to reside in this world. Most people who die, live eternally in peace in the ages between 25-40. But my parents died young, making their blissful age here younger.

I thought back to when I had met my Mom here in heaven. She was more than ready to meet me, but was disappointed that I wasn't a little girl. My Dad came a couple days after, yesterday in fact, and you could tell he felt the same. The fact that I was technically older than them in heaven made them look at me more as a friend and less as a daughter. I had a hard time deciding whether or not to call them 'Mom and Dad' or 'Jackie and Hyde.' Things didn't feel right either way.

I looked back to the memory, and saw as the stripper claimed to be Dad's wife, but I've watched all of this happen again and again. I already knew that the marriage was false, but they didn't at the time. I sighed again, I guess I'm going to be sighing for a while now.

"I'm going to let you go to Earth at this time and change everything." Jesus looked at me with a serious look on his face. I was in total shock, I couldn't even respond. "You see, I know that everything would be better if all of this didn't happen, and I feel like you are the only one that can stop that. Yes, your parents are happy here, but they deserve to be happy and live a full life down there, with you alive."

I swallowed whatever saliva was in my mouth. "How the hel-heavens do you expect me to do that?" I looked back at my parents, "look how happy they are here. It's so different from what this is." I pointed to the memory.

Jesus put a hand on my back, "They can never be eternally happy here when they left so many people's lives behind in chaos." He gave me a knowing look.

I'd seen what would become of all their friends after what had happened to my parents. Jesus had shown me before. Eric, Donna, Fez, Kelso, Kitty, and Red's lives would never be the same. They would all live with the burden of their friends' deaths on their back, wishing they could have made the effort to prevent it. Shit, it wasn't pretty. Fez, fat. Eric and Donna never ending up together. Kelso in jail. Kitty and Red divorced.

"Okay, I'll do it." I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Damn, I hope this works out. I looked up to Jesus.

He smiled. "I'm going to send you to the night Sam came, and well, I can't really tell you much after that my child. You're on your own. Do you want to tell your parents you're leaving?"

I chuckled a little, "I don't need permission from 18 year olds." I winked at Jesus.

"Okay, here you go."

I closed my eyes and waited for what came next.


	2. Chapter 2

Here we go!

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><p>I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.<p>

I opened my eyes, and saw the front of Eric Forman's house. I could hear light voices coming form inside, and it sounded like my parents were talking.

I heard an engine and turned around to see a taxi, with the blonde bimbo coming out of it. She paid the fare, and walked towards the door, smiling straight at me. I noticed the taxi had left. Jesus would send me right here, without even time to think of a frigging battle plan!

"Hey! I'm Sam, is Steven Hyde here? I'm his wife, here from Las Vegas!" Wow, straight to the point. I smirked at her, and glared her down through my aviators. It was dark out, and impossible to see my eyes.

"Nope, no Steven Hyde here." I smiled as geniunely as possible. "You must have gotten the wrong house."

Her body shifted and she looked at me confused. "Oh okay, well, do you mind if I use your phone so I can call him?"

I straightened up, and cross my arms together. "No, sorry. Strangers aren't allowed here sweetheart. We're a private kind of people." I touched her arm to turn her around to make her go away, but she turned around immediately.

"There's something fishy about you. You remind me of my husband, especially with the sunglasses, and the outfit! He's here isn't he?" As I looked down to inspect my outfit, Led Zeppelin t-shirt, jeans and boots, she stepped closer to me, her face inches from mine. "Where are you hiding him?" Her nasty stripper breath was all in my face.

OH. HELL. NO. If there's one thing I despise more than this stripper, it's people in my fucking personal space. "Listen bitch, you need to leave, there is no place for you here."

She crossed her arms, and stepped closer to me. I didn't think it was possible, but we still weren't touching bodies. "I'm not leaving until you show me where Steven is." She filled in the gap, and while our arms made contact, my anger let loose.

And before you know it, I was on top of her, punching her in the face, one fist after the other, as she made extremely loud squealing noises. "You know what you stupid stripper? Stay the hell away from Hyde, and run back to your actual husband Larry! You whore! You don't think I fucking know? You're ruining two people's lives by coming here! You're killing me!" I screamed at her at the top of my lungs.

The door behind me opened. "What the hell?" It was my Dad's voice. "Sweet, girl fight." She smirked.

"Steven, what's happening?" My Mom's voice came from deeper inside the house, and soon she was behind my Dad in the doorway.

I stopped the beating I was giving, and got off Sam, her face unrecognizable. She cried out in pain, "Steven, if I knew I was going to get beaten, I woulda never came!" She quickly grabbed her luggage, and started running in a completely opposite direction. "Goodbye!"

The kid inside of me was giddy knowing that a big part of my mission was complete.

"Sam?" He recognized her voice, but left it at that. Unfortunately Jackie didn't.

"Sam? Who the hell is Sam?" I gulped as my Mom asked who Sam was. It was time for me to speak.

"Sam is a stripper from Las Vegas that Daaaa-Hyde met, and she came here because uhm, well, Hyde had forgotten something! And she wanted to return it!" Fuck, I hope I didn't sound fake.

They both turned to me with wondering faces, as if they knew somehow knew who I was. I looked down to my Mom's stomach, and smiled, knowing that I was looking at myself. There I am.

"Who are you?" They said at the same time. They quickly turned to eachother, but turned back again to look at me. I didn't know what to say, but there was a voice inside of me pushing me to just tell the truth. It seemed like only the extremes worked for my parents.

I gulped, sighed, coughed and closed my eyes, trying to stall and find the right words for what I wanted to say.

"Wellllllllllll?" Jackie crossed her arms, and leaned on her left foot impatiently. She stared at me with the mismatched eyes that I had inherited.

Hyde looked at me through his sunglasses and waited. Knowing I had nothing to say right at that moment, he looked like he was more patient than Mom was. "Come inside." He gestured inside the door. Mom looked like she was going to argue, but looked at me with pity and she led me inside.

I sat on the piano bench, as Mom and Dad sat on the couch, waiting for me to explain who I was and where I had come from, and maybe why I had kicked Sam's ass.

I opened my mouth to say something, and just let my heart do the talking, knowing that if I thought about it too much, it would sound more ridiculous than it would already sound.

"My name is Nicole Katherine Hyde." I paused and looked at the two sitting on the couch. "Well, it woulda been if I had actually been born." Part of me didn't want to tell the horrible truth, but the rest of me knew it was the right thing to do.

Jackie looked at me, and I could see tears forming in her eyes. She put her hand to her stomach. "How did you.." She couldn't find the words to say.

Hyde looked back and forth at Jackie, himself and me, taking in my full appearance. I had short straight raven hair that ended just above my shoulders, parted on the right side. I had pale skin, and had one blue eye and one green eye. I had a button nose just like my Mom and lips shaped like hers. I was her carbon copy, just a little taller and my skin was light like my Dad's. But I dressed exactly like my Dad does on a daily basis.

I took the chance to speak again. "I'm your daughter." I swallowed hard. "But I was never born into the world, I spent what you would call my life span in heaven, watching your worlds fall apart. And I've come to prevent that from happening."

Dad was beginning to say something, but I continued talking. "I know I might seem completely crazy, but I promise I'm telling the truth. I can see how you two see yourselves in me. And I know it doesn't completely fit, but I want to explain exactly why I was sent here."

"What happens to you?" I looked my Mom as she spoke in tears.

"You know that girl I just beat up? She was going to come inside to claim being Hyde's wife. But she really isn't. But if I didn't come her and scare her away, Hyde would have accepted her in, not because he wanted to, but because he wanted to prove to you that marriage was important to him, even if you didn't see the gesture as that."

I stopped and continued speaking after a few moments, staring into my Dad's sunglasses. "After she realized you weren't going to get rid of Sam, she had gotten into a deep depression, and had gotten an abortion without thinking much into it." I started tearing up. "And I was never given a chance to live. You see, keeping Sam and keeping me were the two decisions that changed your lives forever."

"But I would never-"

"But you did, and things spiraled after that. Sam had left Hyde for her real husband, but he didn't fight for you, because deep down inside, he thought that a stripper didn't want him, neither would you. Not that you two were friends at the time, you two were burning eachother so much, it was painful to see happening, knowing you two had been so in love. But both of you didn't have the guts to make the first step."

"Jackie, you dated Fez for a while, thinking he'd be insane and crazy enough to stop the pain, but it didn't. And about a year and a half after this day.."

I choked it out, "You commited suicide."


	3. Chapter 3

Review?

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><p>I couldn't find the strength to stop anything that I was saying, it felt right to be pouring this all out. I couldn't look at my parents faces, I keep staring at my boots while talking, afraid if I saw their faces, I wouldn't be able to continue on.<p>

"After the whole Fez situation, things didn't get better. You had lost everything you worked for. Your dream job, the man you love, your parents. Donna was started college and was so busy trying to rekindle her relationship with Eric, she never really took the time to really check up on you. Fez moved out of the apartment you two shared, to be closer to the salon because he had gotten a promotion and spent long hours there. Kelso was in Chicago with Brooke, and only called for five minutes of small talk."

I shifted in my chair, trying to figure out how to say the next part. "Dad, you had your job, your store, your business during the day, and you drank out your sorrow at night. Your career was at a record high, but everything else was a mess you couldn't get a hold off. But you were still moving forward at the time, something was positive."

I cleared my throat as my voice started to shake. "Mom couldn't afford the apartment anymore, and was forced to move back into her parent's house. And being alone, with no one to talk to through the whole day, living with the burden of killing her child, she started to see things. I watched her every night, talking to thin air. She saw everything she wanted to see, she saw things the way she wanted things to happen. She was hallucinating. I watched her talk to her loving parents, her loving husband Steven and her baby girl Nicole."

Tears flowed down my cheeks. "Then one day, Dad went over to her apartment because she had stopped coming to the basement and found out where she had moved. When he had gotten there, he saw what she was doing. And the moment she saw him, she saw two Stevens. Her husband, and the one that broke her heart. It brought her over the edge as her two realities started to combine, and she shot herself right in front of you Dad. Her last words were 'I'm sorry Nicole, Mommy will see you in heaven.'"

I stopped talking and looked up to my parents. Mom was bawling her eyes out, and Dad had a stone face, but I could tell he was holding his tears behind his sunglasses, by the way he would shake. But I noticed they were holding hands, holding on to eachother's hands so tightly, afraid that if they let go, everything I said would come true.

"Soon after that, you ended your life too Dad. You felt responsible for what Mom had done." I felt my eyes glazing over again. "And all of that affected everyone else's lives. I learned today that in the future, Red and Kitty aren't even married anymore."

Jackie and Hyde looked up in shock.

"The hardest part of it all is that I couldn't understand any of it. I watched every moment between you two. The behind the scenes, I'd always call them. The tender words, the loving kisses, the way you looked at eachother. And the fact that you two threw it all away just like that, kills me. I didn't even get a chance to live, and get to know you two."

I stopped talking, afraid that my anger would come out and I would take it out on my Mom and Dad. And I changed the subject. "It's hard to think that one decision could spiral into something so beautiful or something so terrible."

I looked straight to Hyde. "Dad, yours was the Jackie or Sam decision." I shifted my gaze to Jackie. "And Mom, yours was whether or not to keep me. I know I said this before, but it's an important thing. And well, now you've been given a second chance at life, literally. I already picked for you dad, considering I did whoop Sam's ass. And well, I hope after what I've told you Mom, you decide to keep me." I laughed a bitter laugh.

"So I guess the new question is.. To be or not to be?" I laughed again, even if no one else thought it was funny. I put my sunglasses on, feeling a little too exposed with them off for so long. As I fixed my aviators on my face, I noticed my Dad remove his. He put them aside and rubbed his eyes down to his cheeks, as if he was frustrated.

We sat in silence for a while, not wanting to say anything, knowing the other was deep in thought. I decided to add something. "I don't want you to choose because of me wanting to live and grow up normally."

Hyde was the one who spoke first. He looked completely vulnerable. He turned to me. "I have one hell of a daughter. I don't want to give you up."

Jackie's ears perked up, and she turned to Hyde, as if knowing what he was really saying. She stared deep into his eyes, and smiled. "I knew it all along."

One thing I loved about my parents is that they always some sort of unspoken communication going on. Mom and Dad could always translate a simple sentence into a bigger meaning. And by the look on my Mom's face, I could see that it happened right then and there.

Hyde took Jackie's face by his hands, and slowly planted a kiss on her. The hopeless romantic in me wanted to squeal in delight, but the fact I'm still their kid took over my reaction to them kissing. I made puking sounds, just a child should.

Mom turned to me, scowling. "It's such a shame, you look exactly like me, but you dress like your father. I needa prevent that from happening when you're born. I'm getting you pink ruffled onesies."

Me and my Dad's face scrunched up. "I don't know Jacks, I really like what she's wearing. Ready to rock and roll baby." He winked at me.

"And besides, when I'm old enough to speak, I'm going to remind you to let me dress the way I want to, because you killed me in the first place."

Both of them looked at me in horror. Oops. "Too soon?" I laughed as they glared at me. My laugh soon turning into a nervous laugh.

I looked up behind my Mom, and saw Jesus standing there.

"Mom, Dad, it's my time to leave now. I really hope things turn out the way they should've." I removed my sunglasses and handed them to my Dad. "I really don't think I'm ever going to find aviators like this on Earth, so when I'm old enough, can you give them to me? And keep them away from Mother Dearest." I stuck my tongue out at her. And as soon as I saw my parents smile at me, I disappeared, ready to be reborn again.

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><p>I was in heaven again. Why was I in heaven again? Did things not work out? I looked around and saw no signs of my parents here, so I must've done something right. So why am I still here?<p>

"You're here because I have to tell you something." Jesus cleared his throat. "You're not going to remember ever coming to heaven, or ever going back in time to fix things. When you are born, you're going to live your life as a normal kid."

"So wait, my plan worked?" My whole body was shaking with excitement.

"If you call that a plan, but yes, it worked out, Jackie and Hyde are to be married 6 months after you are born. Your Dad will inherit his Dad's company, and Jackie will become the poster girl for his company. Go figure." Jesus shrugged his shoulders.

"You know sometimes it scares me that you're not like, glowing and talking all biblical like." I teased him.

"I have to keep up with the decades too. Keep things funky and groovy." He smiled.

I looked at him weird. "Uhmmm yeahhh.. No." But I quickly busted up in laughter.

He put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me straight in the eyes. "You have a good life. I'll see you again when you've lived your life fully."

And that's the last thing I heard before I saw a white flash.

"Oh, she's beautiful!" Kitty squealed in delight as she held her first grandchild. "I always knew my little Steven would make such beautiful grandbabies for me!" She lightly pinched the bridge of her granddaughter's nose. "You're beautiful. Yes you are, yesss youuu areee!"

"Kitty, give the baby some room, she just was born!" Red grunted. Kitty looked at her husband as if he was crazy and handed him the baby. "Oh no you don- Well, aren't you pretty one." He looked at Hyde. "You did good son."

Kitty grabbed the baby again, and while she was cooing her, she noticed something was wrong. She didn't know her name! "Wait, what did you name her?"

Jackie laughed a quiet laugh, mentally and physically exhausted from childbirth. "Her name is Nicole Katherine Hyde." Hyde grabbed her hand.

Kitty started tearing up, "That's the most beautiful name I've ever heard! Oh, I'm going to spoil you rotten, you are my first grandbaby! I'm so happy Red!"

Jackie and Hyde were caught up in their own world, especially knowing that their precious child was in the safe hands of her grandmother. "I'm glad we made the right choice the second time around. I couldn't be happier."

Hyde nodded and leaned into his fiance, giving her a sweet kiss. "And the best part, she's gonna look exactly like you, but dress exactly like me."

Jackie smacked him on the arm, "UGH. Don't remind me!"


End file.
